The overwhelming success of the Mega Millions enterprise makes it an irresistible target for something more — a way to transform American elections and along the way reduce our deep political dysfunction.

Medicare is facing a fiscal calamity: how can the growth of Medicare spending be limited while ensuring that beneficiaries continue to have access to affordable health care?

Barring the unimaginable, just 30 years from now, Japan will be a far smaller and vastly more aged country than the one we know today. On the cusp of a monumental demographic transformation, Japan is gradually but relentlessly evolving into a society whose contours and workings are the stuff of science fiction.

What we need to do now is to create more openings for high-skill immigrants while reducing the number of slots for extended family reunification for low-skill immigrants, and Congress (though no the Obama administration) seems to be taking some steps in that direction. The Economist, while not addressing low-skill immigration, seems to be taking a similar view.

Rick Santorum won big victories in three small contests in the Republican presidential race last Tuesday. In doing so he reshaped the oft-reshaped nomination battle once again. But he has not installed himself as the favorite, and neither he nor Mitt Romney has established himself as the candidate who can do best in the general election.

Progress against poverty requires measuring countries by the rule of law, judicial independence and free speech.

While the United States consumes a disproportionate share of global resources devoted to medical care, this global share is shrinking.

Romney was the big, big winner in delegates, but that doesn't mean that he'll be handed the nomination.